DeFi disruption
Plus: a different energy world, a disconnect, DAOs and more
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ||
Hello everyone, I hope you’re all well! This week has gone by SO fast…
Yesterday, I chatted to Scott Melker on his live The Wolf of All Streets show – you can catch the replay here.
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Production note: no newsletter tomorrow due to a conflict, sorry, but do tune in to my Substack Live chat with Irina Slav where we discuss newslettering. We kick off at 1pm CEST / 7am EST (more details below).
PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨
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For fintech platforms, exchanges, institutional investors, and builders evaluating the tokenized equities opportunity.
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IN THIS NEWSLETTER
DeFi disruption
Term of the day: DAO
Markets: a bewildering disconnect
Energy markets: a different world
Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on the overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes. Plus links and more.
If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤
✨Press Publish with Irina Slav✨
Come join me for a “Press Publish” Substack Live this Friday, April 24th, at 7am EST / 1pm CEST when I talk to energy expert Irina Slav.
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We’re not going to discuss crypto nor energy, at least not this time. Rather, we’ll talk about why Irina does what she does, her process, how she manages to juggle so much, what works and what doesn’t, and more.
WHAT I’M WATCHING:
DeFi disruption
Hacks and other exploits are distressingly common in the crypto ecosystem, unsurprising given its basis in code and the genius of online manipulators. The hubris-fuelled confidence of the sector’s early days has fortunately faded (I remember being yelled at for questioning the Ethereum DAO back in the day) as by now we all know that complexity always has weak points. But the scramble for profit still incentivizes us to downplay the potential impact of any risk.
I rarely cover examples of losses from crime in this newsletter as they have come to feel more like background noise than foreground impact, but this past week gave us an unfortunate exception. On Saturday, Kelp DAO suffered an exploit that triggered significant contagion and uncomfortable controversy.
Much like how 2016’s Ethereum DAO drama led to a decentralized network taking a centralized decision to roll back supposedly immutable transactions, the Kelp DAO incident shines a harsh spotlight on decentralization and questions whether it can ever become a pillar of modern finance. A big difference between then and now is the sheer size of today’s DeFi market, and the participation or at least peripheral interest from large, sometimes seriously large, institutions.
